Analysis: Ideological differences notwithstanding, Dix-Harper relationship could be a productive one

Peter O'Neil, Vancouver Sun05.06.2013

Candidate Adrian Dix chats with his former boss, ex-premier Glen Clark, at the Vancouver-Kingsway NDP nomination meeting in the Windermere secondary gym on Dec. 5, 2004. Clark nominated Dix at the meeting. If elected, Dix is expected to have a less confrontational relationship with Ottawa than Clark did.Jason Payne
/ Province

B.C. Premier and Liberal Leader Christy Clark shields her eyes from the sun as she takes questions from the media during a provincial election campaign stop along the South Fraser Perimeter Road in Delta, B.C., on Monday May 6, 2013. British Columbians go to the polls May 14 for a provincial election. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck ORG XMIT: VCRD101DARRYL DYCK
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Clark has made some high-profile and mostly short-lived efforts to win Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s favour, hiring rock-ribbed conservatives from Harper’s camp and sipping a Tim Hortons coffee with Harper at one of her son’s hockey games in the Lower Mainland.

But she has just as frequently frustrated the federal Conservatives, most recently on Sunday when she once again turned her nose up at two oilsands pipeline proposals to the B.C. coast that are considered by Ottawa to be in the national interest.

If Clark manages a stunning come-from-behind victory on May 14, British Columbians can assume more of the same — continued federal-provincial tensions on the oilsands pipelines issue and occasional flare-ups like the Kitsilano Coast Guard closure dispute. But these would be two governments generally supportive of business interests, so expect harmony on other economic issues like the proposed Canada-Europe free trade deal.

Should British Columbians assume relations will get considerably worse if Adrian Dix hangs onto his lead and becomes premier?

Could B.C. revert to the nasty nineties, when then-premier Glen Clark — with Dix as his top adviser — waged a costly political war with his federal counterparts over management of the Pacific salmon fishery?

While a ticking time bomb underlays the B.C.-Ottawa relationship given Harper’s fervent support for oilsands pipelines, few observers expect the relationship to be anywhere near as toxic as it was during the Glen Clark era.

Dix, for one, has ruled out any notion he will try to revive B.C.’s fed-bashing tradition, best represented by Clark and the late W.A.C. Bennett.

“The days of the big federal-provincial confrontations (are) over,” Dix told The Vancouver Sun last year, promising a “business-like” relationship with Harper.

Political insiders say there are many similarities between Harper and Dix that may help the two hit it off despite clashing ideologies. Both are bilingual and former Parliament Hill staffers who grew up during the same era in major multicultural urban areas.

Dix, who turned 49 on April 20, is the son of a couple who ran an insurance business in Vancouver. Harper, who celebrated his 54th birthday on April 30, is a Toronto native and the son of an accountant.

Harper and Dix are knowledgeable sports fans with a deep understanding of Canadian political history. And while Dix is far less reserved than Harper, neither man could be mistaken for glad-handing extrovert politicians like their current principal rivals — Christy Clark and Justin Trudeau.

And Harper, according to some of his former cabinet colleagues, respects straight-shooting politicians with clear and unwavering principles, and who approach relations in a business-like fashion. Dix has tried to telegraph to both B.C. businesses and his own party members that he’ll advocate a moderate agenda with no big surprises.

An additional comfort for Ottawa is Dix’s choice of Don Wright, the respected president of the B.C. Institute of Technology, to head up the public service under an NDP government.

Former Harper cabinet colleagues Stockwell Day and Jay Hill — both strong B.C. Liberal supporters — note that Harper has a productive working relationship with the NDP premiers of Nova Scotia and Manitoba.

“If I were giving (Dix) advice I’d say, above all else, ‘Just say what you mean and mean what you say.’ If you do that you’ll probably get along well with Stephen Harper.”

Day, B.C.’s former senior minister in the Harper government and the Alberta treasurer when Glen Clark was B.C. premier, has similar advice.

Harper has “no time for games,” he said.

Still, there are some inevitable tensions ahead.

The NDP leader, for instance, plans to raise corporate taxes by two percentage points — or double what the Clark government announced in the recent budget, and contrary to the broad message Harper is trying to send to international investors.

“His economic proposals will go against the grain of what the prime minister thinks is going to work for Canadians, so that will create strain,” Day said.

And Dix is likely to object to continuing federal budget cuts that on occasion have backfired on Ottawa, such as the decision to close the Kitsilano rescue station. He also is critical of the proposed Canada-Europe free trade deal due to the possible impact of expanded patent protections on prescription drug prices.

And Dix is a vocal opponent of Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat. During this campaign Dix has also voiced opposition — although in less aggressive terms — to Kinder Morgan’s proposed twinning of its existing pipeline from Edmonton to Burnaby.

The oilsands pipeline debate “certainly will be a flashpoint,” Hill said.

There are also political dynamics that could fuel tensions.

Dix could be under pressure politically to attack Harper in order to energize hard-core New Democrats dismayed that he isn’t doing enough in areas like social program spending.

And Harper and his B.C. ministers, in turn, will likely want to seize on any controversial actions by the B.C. New Democrats to discredit federal leader Tom Mulcair.

But Dix knows that picking gratuitous fights with Ottawa won’t help him advance B.C. economic interests or help him maintain support from NDP-Liberal swing voters, whom he’ll need in order to win re-election in four years, say analysts.

Dix, given his experience in the former Glen Clark government, is “well aware of the dangers of over-posturing in intergovernmental affairs,” said University of Victoria professor emeritus Norman Ruff.

University of B.C. political scientist Richard Johnston said Dix will have to pick his spots in terms of taking on Ottawa.

“Fed-bashing for its own sake does seem to bolster a premier’s popularity, but only for a little while,” Johnston said. “If you go back to Glen Clark and the fisheries disputes, his ratings did go up. But they didn’t stay up very long and after a while his desperation became pretty transparent.

“Meanwhile, the population of the province, especially of the Lower Mainland, has less and less of an anti-Ottawa reflex of the sort that W.A.C. Bennett used to exploit.”

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Analysis: Ideological differences notwithstanding, Dix-Harper relationship could be a productive one

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